Columns

Texas has done it to us again. The state has enjoyed bullying us ever since it came into existence. This time it involves playing by different rules for the collection on drought insurance.
Last year, as the effects of drought became very obvious, the U.S. Department of Agriculture began touting a new drought insurance policy. Ranchers in New Mexico and Texas jumped at the opportunity.
Sure enough, both states are experiencing the worst droughts in recorded history. Texas ranchers have received $65 million in payments. New Mexico ranchers have received $2,000 for the $1.5 million they paid in premiums.

Who were New Mexico’s most off-beat governors? My choices are Dave Cargo, Gary Johnson and Clyde Tingley.
It isn’t difficult for most New Mexicans to remember Gary Johnson. He was governor back just the other side of Bill Richardson. It often seemed as though Johnson was more interested in his athletic feats than in being governor.
But Johnson did attend to business, keeping New Mexico’s budget under firm control while pushing his libertarian views of restraining government from interfering in people’s business or private lives.

New Mexico’s 2011 legislative redistricting of state political boundaries promises to be unique in terms of timing, content and politics.
September special sessions are not unusual in New Mexico but a special session beginning this early in the month is rare.
Redistricting special sessions normally are confined to that topic plus a few non-controversial items of a truly emergency nature. Not so this year.
Until 10 years ago, New Mexico’s decennial redistricting sessions were fairly devoid of politics. The 2001 session shows us what likely will happen this year.

It’s human nature to cling to the familiar. We look at the way things are and we are comforted by the fact that things have always been this way and they’ll always stay this way.
Things that cost more are always better than things that cost less. Chicken soup will always cure any illness. The Earth has always revolved around the Sun.
And men have always been smarter than women (just don’t tell my wife I said that.)
Life just seems to make more sense when we ignore the simple fact that things do change.
One of my favorite subjects of change is standard units of measure. Take the inch for example. What could be more firmly rooted in history than the common inch?

This summer has been filled with acrimony about the federal budget, with red versus blue politicians squaring off to hurl criticisms at each other.
For a lot of us, turning on the news has felt like an exercise in masochism.
Imagine my pleasure, then, at going to a recent meeting where Americans from quite different walks of life were gathered to learn together about something we all need – a nutritious food supply.
On a recent and beautiful summer morn’ without even a breath of wind, a diverse group of citizens gathered on land belonging to Washington State University.

The current Public Regulation Commission difficulties involving Jerome Block, Jr. aren’t the first time that five-member body has been in turmoil.
In its dozen years of existence, it has been in almost constant disorder. The PRC was created in 1998 to replace a three-member state Corporation Commission that was always in havoc.
The solution created by the New Mexico Legislature and passed by voters was to replace the Corporation Commission and the appointed Public Utilities Commission with one elected body that would be reined in by various popular “good government” features such as public financing and a ban on campaign donations or other favors from utilities they regulate.

Neutral is the outlook for the New Mexico economy from the Economics Group at Wells Fargo Securities.
Wells’ only “upside risk” appears to be “if alternative energy begins to take hold over the near term.”
Near term? What? A year or two? Snicker, chortle. Wells’ economists must be mainlining the green air around their San Francisco offices.
One has to wonder if the neutral declaration, issued June 24, offers some insight about New Mexico getting no mention in Wells’ much broader report, dated April 13, “Economic Dynamics and State Competitiveness.”
Maybe, being neutral, there are no dynamics to mention and no competitiveness to analyze.

Business owners know it takes money to make money; production expenses must be paid before products are sold and revenue is received.
Entrepreneurs with a business idea have an even greater need for up-front cash.
They must have enough capital to cover negative cash flow in the early months or years of new business creation and growth.
Without adequate initial investment, they risk falling into the so-called valley of death – the deep and wide gulf that separates a company’s need for capital and investors’ willingness to supply it.
Also known as the grand canyon of capital need vs. availability, the valley can be shallow or deep depending on the amount of money needed to develop the idea or product.

Read my lips: No new pledges. How’s that for a campaign slogan?
The recent debate over the federal debt limit showed millions of Americans just how dysfunctional our federal leadership has become, if they needed another demonstration.
Since the 2012 Congressional election season has already begun, it’s not too early to talk about what we really want from our representatives in Congress.
New Mexico has only three seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, two of which have incumbent advantages, and one Senate seat on the ballot next year.

Redistricting never turns out how you think it will, warned Michael Davis, vice president of political programs for the Washington D.C.-based Business and Industry PAC.
One demographic could trump lines drawn on a map, here and across the nation – immigration reform.
“Republicans are in trouble with Hispanics,” Davis said, and in the last five years, Hispanics have outpaced every other group in population growth – by large margins. “Every year for the next 20 years, there will be 500,000 new Hispanic voters turning 18. It will play a large, deciding vote in elections.”
In New Mexico that increase was 16 percent and in Texas, 20 percent. Davis predicts Texas will be a blue state by 2020.